Carlos Sainz (Madrid, 1994) began this 2021 with the great challenge of landing at Scuderia Ferrari, the team of teams in the history of Formula 1, but doing so at a delicate moment for those from Maranello , who do not know what is to win a World Cup since 2008… 13 years ago. No more no less.
The responsibility and complexity of the new adventure of the man from Madrid – which put the rebirth of McLaren on track in the last two seasons – were enormous and the process of adaptation at a time when F1 limits tests and test kilometers to the maximum. to the teams, a true odyssey.
Even so, Sainz landed on his feet in Maranello, helped by his knowledge of Italian and his good friends from the start with Charles Leclerc, who started as team leader despite being three years younger than him.
After a preseason of adaptation work and uncertainties, the Bahrain GP opened the competition ban and there Sainz slipped into the top 10 on Saturday, despite a blackout in his SF21 during Q1 that was about to leave him no options. In the race, a simply sensational last 20-lap stint made him finish 8th, but with a top-5 pace.
In Emilia Romagna , Sainz had his first disappointment in qualifying, where he couldn’t make the cut for a breath and had to start 11th. But in the race he once again got the most out of the Italian car on a Sunday in which the rain took away the advantage of being the first to choose a tire. Even so, and despite some mistakes in the wet, he achieved his first top 5 with Ferrari… in his second race.
Although in Portugal he was “the best of the rest” in qualifying, in the race a risky undercut attempt made him finish 11th, add his first zero in red and see how Leclerc doubled him in points. In his home race, in Barcelona , he returned to the path of points, after a Sunday against from the start, but the best was yet to come.
Ferrari surprised locals and strangers with a podium pace at the Monaco GP weekend. Still, Sainz ended Saturday visibly pissed off at fourth place on the grid, after Leclerc’s crash late in Q3 prevented him from completing his second attempt.
But on Sunday, in the race of the races, Sainz pulled calm and rhythm on a unique circuit, taking advantage of the problems of his rivals (including Leclerc, who did not take the start) to roll in podium positions from almost the beginning. His fierce defense of Verstappen in the closing laps gave him a historic second place finish (the best in his racing career) and his first podium finish for Rosso . Late for memory.
Carlos Sainz’s results in the 2021 Formula 1 season
(Points and results per race)
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164.5 | 4/8 | 10/5 | – | 6/7 | 18/2 | 4/8 | – | 8/6 | 10/5 | 8 | 15/3 | 0.5/10 | 6/7 | 8 | 15/3 | 4/8 | 6/7 | 8/6 | 9 | 6/7 | 4/8 | 15/3 | – |
In Baku , another street circuit, things were not the same for the Maranello team, since the long straights of the Azerbaijani capital were no longer so favorable to their SF21. There, Sainz was unable to avoid Tsunoda’s unexpected accident at the end of Q3 and went against the protections of the escape area. However, he would start fifth in a race that had everything and that ended with a final sprint two laps after Verstappen’s accident. The Spanish could only be eighth and regretted the error in the castle curve in the first laps.
France was the second setback of the first half of the year for Sainz, having ranked best of the rest behind Red Bull and Mercedes. Ferrari’s tire management problems were more evident than ever in Paul Ricard and he could only finish 11th. another zero.
Outside the top 10 in qualifying, Sainz made a brilliant comeback at the Styrian GP to touch the top 5 with a strategic and well-fought race.
The Spaniard extracted the maximum possible from the Ferrari in the second of the two appointments in Austria to be top 5, after benefiting from a penalty to Vettel and starting 10th, after not going to Q3. The Spaniard assured that he was already beginning to find the sensations he expected with the Ferrari in his ninth race with them.
And in the penultimate round of the first half of the year, at Silverstone, where the sprint qualifying race format was tested, Sainz could only manage 11th after a contact with Russell on Saturday. But on Sunday, in the midst of the Hamilton-Verstappen controversy, he was about to sneak into the top 5, something that prevented him from a bad Ferrari pitstop .
The man from Madrid could not leave with a better taste in his mouth on vacation at the beginning of August. In Hungary he completed a brilliant race after starting 15th after suffering a 22G accident in Q2 on Saturday. But in the first meters, with intermediate tires, he knew how to avoid the chaos that broke out ahead to place fifth on the first lap.
His pace was podium positions at all times and, although Hamilton snatched him three laps from the end, Vettel’s disqualification late at night gave him his second podium with Ferrari and a third place that placed him sixth overall in the championship.
However, the second half of the year did not start as the first had ended, and Ferrari failed to find its way on Friday and Saturday at Spa. Both drivers fell in Q2, although penalties and Pérez’s accident on the way to the grid left him tenth in a race that was not really contested.
Without rest, F1 arrived at Zandvoort , where Sainz experienced a real roller coaster of emotions. He was third in free practice 1, but suffered an accident in FP3 on Saturday that put his participation in qualifying at risk. Finally he was able to go out on the track and achieved a great sixth place on the grid, although in the race he suffered with the tires and, with an uncompetitive pace, he could only finish seventh.
Monza completed the treble in early September and hosted the second 2021 F1 sprint weekend. There, Sainz qualified seventh on Friday and was positive, but suffered another crash on Saturday in FP2 ahead of the sprint race. . In it, he finished as he started, seventh, and although the race was better, he could only finish sixth after a difficult Sunday in which he suffered a touch from Giovinazzi in the early stages.
In the madness of qualifying for the Russian GP, Carlos Sainz qualified second, his best result of the year on Saturday. On Sunday he came to lead with a great start, and although he could not maintain the first position, he would get his third podium in red thanks to third place.
The Turkish GP weekend started for Sainz knowing that he had to start at the back of the grid after changing engine, which meant that he had to play a role as Leclerc’s squire in qualifying on Saturday. However, on Sunday, with a brutal comeback, he managed to finish eighth despite another slow Ferrari pitstop without which he could have finished even higher. The fans praised his performance considering him the ‘Driver of the day’ in Istanbul.
In the United States , the next stop on the calendar, he managed to qualify sixth, but he did so through Q2 on soft tyres, while the rest of his rivals did so on medium. He did not have the best start, but he aspired to fight with Ricciardo and Bottas to be fifth until another failure by Ferrari in the pitstop, which condemned him to seventh place.
Brazil was the venue for the third and final sprint weekend test of F1 2021, and there Sainz left another of his great moments of the course. After being sixth in qualifying on Friday, he had a great start and was third in Saturday’s sprint race, scoring a point. Sunday’s race was not easy at all, and after a bad start where he came into contact with Norris, he had to see the podium from afar, finishing sixth.
This is how he faced the last three appointments of the year, in which he would prolong his streak of races in the points (he has 15 consecutive) and that of races without abandonment (there are already 29 after completing all of 2021) to put the finishing touch to a wonderful season for you.
His finish in qualifying was uneven: in Qatar he was seventh on Saturday but he started fifth after external sanctions, in Saudi Arabia he suffered an accident in Q2 that forced him to start 15th and in Abu Dhabi, last qualifying of the year, he was fifth. In the race, in Qatar he was seventh after having to manage his tires more than necessary on Sunday; in Saudi Arabia, eighth after mixed luck with the red flags and in Abu Dhabi, although the media attention was for the final Verstappen-Hamilton duel, he accompanied the two titans with his fourth podium of the year, his sixth in Formula 1.
And, if they say that you are as good as your last race, then Sainz will arrive at the first of 2022 with an unbeatable taste in his mouth.
Without a doubt, and not only because he surpassed his teammate –Ferrari protégé and Maranello’s bet for the future since they made him debut in F1 with Sauber in 2018– in the Drivers’ World Championship, where he was ‘the best of the rest’, Sainz won over the most legendary team in F1. His mentality and his complete dedication on a day-to-day basis fit perfectly with what Ferrari needs to fight for victories again.
A complicated adaptation was expected in a team that has not shone for years, but Sainz has hit the table as soon as he could. His first year with the Cavallino has few ‘buts’ and many details that mark and permeate. And in 2022 the order of the grid may change, beware!
In detail, the numbers of Carlos Sainz’s 2021 season in F1
| F1 2021 | Great prizes |
Careers completed |
Dropouts | at the points |
Better result |
Q3 reached | Points | Position |
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22 | 22 | 0 | twenty | 2nd | fifteen | 164.5 | 5th |
The photos of Carlos Sainz in the first half of F1 2021
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